CAMBRIDGE — Tanisha Harris and Francheska Reveron, two mothers who live in the Robinson Gardens public housing complex in Springfield, were the final speakers at our event yesterday on family engagement and literacy. Their stories reinforced the messages delivered by the panel of other experts who preceded them.

Harris and Reveron are parent ambassadors for Talk/Read/Succeed! – a place-based initiative at two public housing developments in the Western Massachusetts city. They read daily with their children. They attend play groups and enroll their children in summer programs. They talk with their children and enjoy such activities as mapping the neighborhood together. Both women are active in the PTO; Reveron became its president.

Before participating in Talk/Read/Succeed! the women didn’t yet realize the importance of reading aloud to their children. They didn’t yet understand how or why to engage their children in the kind of conversation that builds the vocabulary and background knowledge that lay the foundation for reading with comprehension. They were not active in their children’s elementary school.

“My daughter feels empowered because I’m empowered,” Harris told the crowd. “She started getting more used to seeing me at home reading, and she wants to read. We go to the library every Wednesday and Saturday. Every Wednesday and Saturday. Before, we never did that. I checked her homework. Is it neat? That’s not enough. It’s not enough to know how to pronounce the words. She has to understand. I read ahead. What was last week’s chapter about? I know she understands what she reads.

“I had to be taught,” Harris said. “If it’s not something you grew up with, how are you supposed to know?”

This is the kind of focused, supportive family engagement recommended in “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success,” which we commissioned in 2010. It was written by Nonie Lesaux, Ph.D., a nationally recognized literacy expert at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Yesterday’s event at the Cambridge Public Library was the first in a series of five we are holding to delve deeper into Lesaux’s recommendations in the areas of family engagement, program design, curriculum, professional development and assessment. The best practices initiative complements the state-level policy work that led to the recent enactment of An Act Relative to Third Grade Reading Proficiency.

The morning opened with an overview of the research and guiding principles of effective family engagement. First up was Joan Kelley, a research associate at HGSE’s Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group, headed by Dr. Lesaux. She was followed by Dr. Karen Mapp, a nationally recognized expert in family and community engagement at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Kelley said her team’s research found families confused about their children’s needs for adult support of their emerging literacy development. “Many were thinking reading was the responsibility of the schools,” she said. Schools and programs were confused about how to reach and engage families. “We looked at a lot of programs,” she said, “but they weren’t making a measurable difference.”

Children, Kelley said, need both rich conversation and a variety of experiences that enhance their vocabulary and understanding of the world around them. “These build knowledge over time,” she said. “That’s different from teaching the code. The knowledge is to be built from the earliest years.”

Mapp cited research that finds family engagement is critical to improving child outcomes and schools. “When you have families not only reading to their children but reading with them and engaging in conversation you see faster literacy development by one or two grade levels,” Mapp said. This leads to better attendance, better social skills, better behavior and other benefits.

To achieve these results, Mapp said, it is not sufficient to say, “Go forth and partner.” School and program staffs need training in how to “engage families in a respectful way” and to infuse every activity – even bake sales and barbecues – with a literacy component. Families need confidence in their ability to support their children’s learning.

“A lot of schools tell me family engagement is something they do if they have time,” Mapp said. “They do not understand that it is an active ingredient of children’s success. It is important for school improvement.”

Focus on relationships, not programs, Mapp advised. Move from a deficit and adversarial lens and see family engagement as strength-based and collaborative.

“We have to see families as part of the solution, instead of part of the problem,” Mapp said. “We’ve got to shift the paradigm if we want to make that connection with families.”

Lynn described ReadBoston’s efforts to increase the number of families that read with their children at least four times a week. She talked about the organization’s efforts to encourage families to engage their children in language-rich activities and conversation. Parents, she said, need to be nurtured as partners.

Here’s a tentative schedule of subsequent events in the series: professional development (February 2013), program design and impact (May 2013), assessment (August 2013) and curriculum (November 2013). Stay tuned for more information.

(Post script. The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care is hosting a conference on engaging diverse families — Monday, November 19, 2012 at UMass Amherst Campus Center or Monday, November 26, 2012 at Bridgewater State University.)

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Alyssa Haywoode comes to Eye on Early Education after a career in journalism that included writing editorials for the Des Moines Register and Boston Globe. She has written about education, human services, immigration, homelessness, philanthropy and the arts.